re: At what point do we (myself included) say enough of this and get the hell out this state?

Ok I feel like some of y’all have never been to these states (this is related to the shitty food comment).

I am a very good cook. Used to cook at least 4-5 nights a week but kinda slacked off lately. Knowing how to cook does not solve all your problems when you cannot get good ingredients. There’s a handful of population centers in those states where it wouldn’t really be an issue but the state as a whole is fricking desolate if you lived anywhere rural. I have quite a bit of experience with Wyoming for example and the place just sucks, outside of astounding natural beauty and whatnot. I’m talking like not seeing another car for a hundred miles, and damn sure not getting anything worth a shite from the grocery store.

Also seafood is personally very important to me so these mountain west states are hard for me to justify. Again this is a personal preference so if it’s not important to you then good for you. Mississippi is my shithole but I live far enough north I don’t have to deal with hurricanes, our cost of living is probably the lowest in the land, our food is really good like a best of multiple cultures with seafood still being big but also having the things from farther north, and basically you can just do whatever the hell you want. If you are used to urban life and huge variety of consumables at your disposal all the time then it’s definitely not for you, but as far as being basically an outlaw but still having more access to things than you would out west it’s a dream.

Our weather fricking sucks though. I always joke that a good indication on how good weather is in any general place is how long out of the year can you go to a restaurant and eat outside. Well we are lucky if there are two weeks in the fall and two weeks in the spring.